Wake up with the sun coming up over the Dunav. Lots of noises in the night, cats dogs humans, I get down the steep river bank to the river on the steps made out of tyres . When I come back a man appears, I ask if he is the bruder, Yes he replies. He speaks a tiny bit of English but more importantly he has common sense which makes communicating a whole lot easier and gestures and body language help the situation along. He doesn't look like a master criminal (sound familiar?) and he offers me coffee. We sit and have another one of those super strong coffees that give me the jitters for an hour or so. Since meeting Dusko the Bosnian refugee I have managed to download some basic dictionaries for the laptop. With the aid of this I manage to have a conversation with Dimitri the owner. All becomes clear. We are sitting on a concrete patio jutting out over the edge of the cliff, he beckons me over when I ask why he doesn't sleep here and shows me various props and scaffold poles holding up the patio. A small car jack and one half brick seems to be all we are resting on. Tonnes of builder's rubbish has been poured over the edge of the garden in order to support it and stop it crumbling into the river. It appears that the Donau rose very high and the house subsided in 2006 and the local government doesn't have the 20,000 euros to put it right. It's not safe to live in, but for some reason this doesn't stop me spending most of the morning here typing up the blog. When I ask if I'm keeping him from getting to work he takes me round the back of the house and I work out that his job is rewpairing outboard motors and generators. He now lives somewhere else with his family. The view from here in the morning is spectacular, it's such a shame that with this type of view comes these kind of risks. He goes off to work after setting me up with an extension lead on the patio so I can use the laptop. He is keen to show me a youtube clip of what I gather to be the subsidence, but he has no internet. An hour later he pops out to get a part and jokes about me still being here when I get back. I explain I'd rather be catching up on my writing with this amazing view than sat in a mcwifi in Belgrade. He understands and says I can stay as long as I want. At this point the thought of staying is very appealing, beautiful view, great weather, a tap, power, what more can I want? But things take a turn for the worse when I get back from the town after lunch. The wind is blowing a gail and the dust is getting everywhere, Dimitri say it will probably last a few months (I think). My laptop, tent clothes, everything have a covering of dust over them and litter and plastic bags are blown everywhere. When I have a tidy up and produce my bag of rubbish asking him what to do with it. He just points to the cliff and all the other rubbish and shrugs, what's the point, he seems to say, what difference will it make? I can't work out if he cares about the state of the rubbish in the country or not. I change the tyres over on the bike as the back one has now got a small bald patch and fix a slow puncture I've had for a while. That will be 1 ½ punctures so far. I have to spend the rest of the afternoon hiding in the tent out of the wind and dust, not what I had planned for my paradise garden view. Hopefully it will die down in the evening, it wasn't like this when I arrived. Evening comes and so do the kids, getting more bosterious by the minute. That will teach me for being friendly. Dimitri's brother arrives and they run off, scared of him. He is a bit scary. Just as this happens the wind dies down just in time for dinner. No sooner have I got the grub out and it starts to rain. I disappear in the tent and stay there. It hammers down til morning. I at least have an extension lead to keep the laptop fired up and entertain me. The mighty Danube has supplied Dimitri with work and his hobby (fishing) yet taken away his home. It's supplied me with a laundrette, a bath and a fantastic view but now kept me here hostage in the rain.
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